Jerusalem - Shrine of the Book

To the right of the entrance of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem is the Shrine of the Book, with a dome of light-colored concrete modeled on the lids of the pottery jars containing the "Dead Sea scrolls". The scrolls were found from 1947 onwards in caves round the monastery of the Essenes at Qumran and thanks to the efforts of the archaeologist Yigael Yadin were acquired for Israel; there are also some scrolls in the Archeological Museum of Amman in Jordan. The scrolls are the earliest manuscripts of the Old Testament in the Hebrew language apart from two silver tablets engraved with a few words from the book of Numbers. In the center of the rotunda are displayed scrolls containing extensive passages from the book of Isaiah (copies);